NFL teams plan for any number of contingencies on Sundays. It is a physical sport, and all it takes is one play for a player to get injured. An injury to the wrong player can completely change the game plan. Far down on the list of planned contingencies is the backup punter. Not only does that create the need for someone to actually punt the ball, but often the punters serve as the holder on the field-goal unit.
The Steelers unfortunately had this depth tested in Week 1 when P Cameron Johnston went down with a season-ending knee injury. Chris Boswell punted the ball once, but they ended up needing WR Scotty Miller to be the emergency holder.
Mike Tomlin told the media that he conducted a straw poll with the team to see if anybody had held in high school or at any other point in their football careers. Miller said he did in high school, so the job was his.
Special teams ace Tyler Matakevich described the moment leading up to the field goal in the fourth quarter and how chaotic it was for Miller.
“I gotta say, that Scotty thing, Scotty killed it,” Matakevich said via the Christian Kuntz Podcast. “But man, if people saw right before he ran out on the field, the last snap, the practice snap, that he got on the sidelines. My man’s hands were shaking. The ball came, it was flipped sideways. He’s still trying to get it. The laces were facing us.
“Then the next thing you know, you just hear him scream ‘Scotty, let’s go!'”
The snap was a tad high from Kuntz for a new holder like Miller, yet he hauled it in and made it happen for Boswell to increase the lead to eight points late in the game. The play is shown below.
The Steelers have since signed P Corliss Waitman, so Miller is off the hook for his holder duties for now. But he is always just one snap away from now being the holder by default.
